Last week, it was Whitney Houston coming back from the dead, at least in hologram form. This week, it's Lou Reed's turn to shuffle back on to the mortal coil via the mind of Father John Misty.
It all began, as with everything these days, with Taylor Swift and her pop blockbuster 1989. For reasons known only to perhaps Kanye, Ryan Adams has covered the whole record, with the blessing of Taylor, who called it "surreal and dreamlike". (RayRay's efforts are currently available on iTunes, should you wish to give your pop picks a bluesy, country makeover.)
Father John Misty decided to play his own hand in covers poker, and released his versions of Blank Space and Welcome to New York in the style of the Velvet Underground – which he wittily called "My reinterpretation of the classic Ryan Adams album 1989."
However, now Mr Misty has taken the tracks down after a Dickensian visitation from the ghost of alt-rock past: Lou Reed. In a rambling Facebook post, Misty wrote about a very strange dream he had involving Ode To Joy, Barack Obama and Jacques Lacan – the latter was "suddenly standing over me, saying over and over, 'The only thing crazier than a peasant who believes he is King, is a King who believes he is a King'."
Misty’s dream vision ended with “Lou Reed on a catwalk hand-cuffed to supermodels who had adopted babies handcuffed to them and Lou said, ‘Delete those tracks, don’t summon the dead, I am not your plaything. The collection of souls is an expensive pastime.’ Then I woke up.”
Taking it as an omen, he took the tracks down. Never wake up, Father J. Never wake up.
